


Kids of the Crimson Waste

by DisasterCat



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Accidental kidnapping, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Catra and Adora escape the Fright Zone as kids, Crimson Waste family, Gen, Huntara raises them, reluctant mom Huntara, young Adora, young catra
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:41:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21882055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DisasterCat/pseuds/DisasterCat
Summary: When Huntara leaves the Fright Zone, she takes two orphaned kids with her.How will they learn to survive (and thrive?) together in the Crimson Waste?
Relationships: Adora & Catra (She-Ra), Adora & Huntara (She-Ra), Catra & Huntara (She-Ra), Huntara & Adora & Catra
Comments: 16
Kudos: 129





	Kids of the Crimson Waste

**Author's Note:**

> Had this idea waaaaay back when Season 3 happened, and notes for it have been sitting around on my desk since then.   
I figured I should actually do something with it a) to stretch my sorely-neglected writing muscles and b) to prove to all you She-Ra-loving internet humans that I'm still alive (even though my other fic has been sitting here with no updates for months at this point. Don't worry - it's not dead, either).   
In short, I'm back and I made this thing please have it.

Huntara squeezed the Force Captain badge in her fist for at least the hundredth time that night. The sharp metal cut thin lines into her palm.

The tall entrance to the skiff bay loomed in front of her. This was the final stop, her last chance to turn back and forget this whole idea of throwing her life, her career, away.

She tried to care, but could only think of her squad – her team, trained together since childhood.

Gone.

She’d known they shouldn’t have gone into that ravine. It was a perfect spot for an ambush. But they went in anyway, on Shadow Weaver’s orders, and against Huntara’s better judgement.

And now they were gone.

In the end, she and her friends had been used as nothing more than a distraction, drawing the Rebellion forces out while Horde tanks moved into position along the top of the ravine to flank them.

The tanks had fired indiscriminately.

Huntara felt the bile rise again in her throat, just as it had in the desperate struggle when her squad – her family – and the Rebellion fighters tried to dodge the laser fire. In that moment, the Horde and Rebellion forces in the ravine had ceased to be enemies, lost instead in a common panic as they tried to stay alive.

In the end, the deaths of Huntara’s closest friends had gained the Horde a few feet of ground, conquered a few more of Etheria’s rocks for Hordak and Shadow Weaver.

Some heroes they turned out to be.

Some hero _she _turned out to be.

In what must have been some cruel joke on Shadow Weaver’s part, she’d carelessly tossed the Force Captain badge to Huntara when she reported back to the Fright Zone after she pulling herself, battered but somehow alive – the _only_ one alive – from the ravine.

_‘You survived – how surprising. Congratulations, you’ve earned a promotion.’_

Huntara released the pressure on the badge and slid it back into the pocket of her Horde-issue gray pants.

She wanted no part of this anymore.

She ducked through the entrance and into the skiff bay.

It was late. The lights were as dim as they ever got, and the only movement came from a single, small maintenance bot whirring away in a corner.

Huntara knew the quiet wouldn’t last long. A patrol would come through in thirty minutes, give or take a little. Her window of opportunity was very small.

She grabbed a key from the box on the wall, glanced at the designation stamped into the metal.

She ducked behind the first row of skiffs and searched for the right set of numbers, keeping her head low. She moved quickly and quietly, agonizingly aware of the seconds ticking away.

Huntara had made it three quarters of the way down the row of skiffs – and, she thought, close to the vehicle with a matching designation to the key she clutched nervously in one hand – when she heard the faint but unmistakable sound of footsteps echoing through the bay. She froze – she should’ve had more time before the guards came through. She moved closer to the nearest skiff, using it to shield her body as she peered around its back fin to find the source of the footsteps.

She saw nothing, and the sound had stopped.

“Hey,” came a voice by her feet – not the gruff bark Huntara had been half-expecting, but something high and sweet and almost innocent. “You’re not supposed to take that.” Huntara looked down to see a tiny blonde girl standing staunchly near her shins, hands on hips, staring up at her with gray-blue eyes full of grim determination.

“What?”

The girl pointed up at the key in her hand. “You’re not supposed to take that.”

Huntara really didn’t have time for this.

“Says who?”

The girl swung her arm to point at the wall, where there hung a sign: ‘_Skiffs may only be requisitioned for use on missions and must be assigned by the requisitions officer_.’

Huntara groaned internally. She needed to escape the Fright Zone and leave her life behind before the patrol swept through – the last thing she needed right now was a rules-conscious seven-year-old. The whole situation was throwing her off, and she found herself drawn into the kid’s argument. “How do you know I didn’t get permission?”

“Because,” and the girl scrunched her face suspiciously, “You were _sneaking_.” Suddenly her eyes went wide. “You’re not a princess, are you? I won’t let you hurt anyone!” She balled her hands into small fists and brought them into a perfectly-executed Horde fighting stance.

It might’ve been cute, if it wasn’t so annoying.

“Put those away, Pipsqueak. Do you really think you could take me?”

“I…” She scanned Huntara’s frame, tipping her head back to take in her full height. “I got the highest score in our last physical assessment.”

Despite the situation, Huntara almost laughed. “Like that means anything. Maybe in a couple years, kid.”

They both paused as a metal grill fell from the wall beside them with a clang, and another small figure tumbled out after it in a whirl of hair, ears, and tail.

Were they keeping kids in the walls now?

“Adora? What’s going on?” The other child – some sort of cat – picked herself up and moved to the other one’s side.

“It’s a bad guy!” shouted Pipsqueak, and Huntara winced. These kids were going to get her caught.

The girl from the vents turned to Huntara and regarded her for a moment – one eye was blue, the other bright yellow. “How do you know she’s bad?”

Pipsqueak sputtered. “Uh… Because, uh…”

Huntara had to cut this short. “Exactly. Now.” She crossed her arms and did her best impression of a disappointed commanding officer. “Why are you two here? You’re definitely not supposed to be in the skiff bay at this time of night.”

Both of them froze for a moment at that, and they shared a worried look. Then the cat one seemed to shrink in on herself, and her annoying friend stepped protectively in front of her. “We weren’t doing anything bad. Honest!” All trace of the blonde girl’s former aggressiveness was gone. Her eyes were wide and earnest. Huntara raised an eyebrow, and Pipsqueak rushed on, desperately. “Really! I just… Catra has to hide until Shadow Weaver’s not mad at her anymore, so I was just bringing her my ration bars. See?” She pulled a crumbling brown bar out of her pocket and offered it up for inspection.

The cat peered tentatively around her friend and said, softly, “Please don’t tell Shadow Weaver.”

Huntara stared at her for a moment, took in the fearful bristle of the girl’s fur, the many small rips and tears in her uniform, the way she hungrily eyed the ration bar in her friend’s hand even as she pleaded her case.

Huntara remembered those days. She used to _be _these kids.

“I won’t tell her,” she said, finally. “Just _be quiet_ and stay out of my way.”

She pushed past them towards the right skiff.

“What are you doing?” The little cat had followed her, though Huntara noticed she’d paused long enough to snatch the ration bar out of Pipsqueak’s hand and had already stuffed half of it into her mouth. Her eyes were sharp and bright, and her ears perked forward as she chewed.

“None of your business.” Huntara matched the number on the key to the one etched onto the fin of the skiff. This was her ride out.

“Are you… leaving?” The annoying blonde had followed her friend.

Huntara paused long enough to glare at the both of them before stepping onto the skiff.

She cursed, nearly tripping over the cat one as the girl leapt onto the vehicle and landed underfoot.

“Catra, what are you doing?!” Pipsqueak’s eyes were wide, her voice high and strained with panic.

“I wanna go, too!”

“We can’t just… leave.”

“Why not? It’s awful here. Come _on _Adora.”

Pipsqueak stood uncertainly at the edge of the loading platform, chewing her lip and looking at her friend with wide eyes.

Huntara felt impatience drumming insistently in the back of her head – a guard would pass this way soon. These kids had already held her up long enough. She looked down at the little cat girl by her feet – she seemed just scrappy enough to make it difficult, if not impossible, to toss her off the skiff and back to the loading platform. Pipsqueak, on the other hand…

Screw it. If either of the girls stayed behind, they’d probably tell the guard – they’d probably tell _Shadow Weaver_ – which way she’d gone.

These kids didn’t belong here, anyway.

With a muttered curse, she grasped Pipsqueak by the scruff, swung her over onto the skiff, and let her fall next to her friend.

She’d find someplace safe to drop them off.

Huntara had the skiff up and soaring before either of the kids had a chance to move.

**

The skiff kicked up more dirt than she expected. Huntara wiped dust out of her face and pulled the rudder to accelerate to the skiff’s full speed. Instinctively, she steered away from the Whispering Woods, a niggling voice in the back of her mind muttering about monsters and undead princesses.

She needed to get someplace the Horde hadn’t touched – someplace the Horde would never _think _to touch. Someplace the Horde didn’t care about – someplace that wasn’t worth conquering.

Someplace like the Crimson Waste.

“Adora… Adora calm down. It’s OK.”

The girls were crouched low and clinging to each other, wobbling unsteadily at the skiff’s rapid pace. Pipsqueak was clutching the cat’s hand, white-knuckled.

“It’s _not _OK – we’re being kidnapped!”

The cat quirked an eyebrow at her friend. “_I’m _not being kidnapped. I jumped on the skiff ‘cause I wanted to. _You’re _the one who got kidnapped.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better!”

“Will you two be quiet?” Huntara growled. “I have enough to think about without you kids chattering.”

They lowered their heads, hunched closer together, and were silent.

The Crimson Waste.

No one ever came back from there. Huntara wasn’t even positive that anyone ever went there in the first place – there were fewer stories about it than even Beast Island, which was rumored to be the home of nightmares.

The Crimson Waste was a place that no one cared about – not the Rebellion, certainly not the Horde. It was the perfect place to get away.

But could she survive there?

She tightened her grip on the skiff’s rudder. Getting away was the first priority. She’d figure out the rest later.

Her gaze fell again to the two girls huddled near her feet. The little cat was rubbing the blonde’s back with her free hand, the other still clutched in a white-knuckled vice grip. Pipsqueak’s breathing had evened and slowed, matching the rhythm of the back rub.

Could _they_ survive there?

Huntara’s kneejerk response to that question was that it really wasn’t her problem. The little cat one had said she wanted to come – if she wasn’t ready for what the world was about to throw at her, she shouldn’t have jumped on to the skiff in the first place.

But Huntara really hadn’t given the blonde one a choice, and they were just kids, after all.

She couldn’t let them slow her down.

She couldn’t just abandon them.

There was a lot of ground to cover before they reached the Crimson Waste. Surely Huntara would come across someone – some bleeding heart Rebellion fighter, if nothing else – who would take in two orphans, and then they _really_ wouldn’t be her problem anymore.

**

Huntara didn’t stop to rest. The girls eventually dozed off against each other, somehow managing to sleep soundly despite the movement of the skiff. They even slept through sunrise, blinking awake only when the sun had climbed, blazing, midway into the sky. At a glare from Huntara, the girls huddled together at the far end of the skiff, muttering to each other secretively.

She came across no one. The familiar terrain of the Fright Zone gradually gave way to loose, red sand sparsely populated by angry-looking plants and jagged pillars of unforgiving stone. They entered the Crimson Waste quietly, without fanfare. Huntara wondered if anyone had noticed that three Horde assets had gone missing during the night.

Huntara pushed the skiff onwards until it began to cough and sputter from lack of fuel, then guided it to rest gently in the sand at the foot of a tall outcropping of rough, red stone. She stepped into the shadow of the outcropping and shaded her eyes as she looked out to the horizon.

It was empty.

The full magnitude of their situation crashed over Huntara like a tidal wave. She had taken them to a barren, lifeless place.

She heard a small sound below and to her left. The girls had climbed down from the skiff to stand beside her.

The little cat was eyeing her.

“What?”

“I’m Catra.” She said it like a challenge, like Huntara might fight her for it. “Who are you?”

Huntara raised her eyes from the girl to scan the horizon again. “Huntara.”

“I’m Adora,” said the other girl.

Huntara snorted and looked down at her. “No. _You_ are Pipsqueak.”

Catra giggled, and Adora turned red. “No I’m not! I’m strong, see?” She lunged at Huntara’s leg and attempted to push her. She may as well have been trying to move a mountain. She strained at Huntara’s shin for a few moments before falling back, exhausted, into the sand.

The corner of Huntara’s mouthed twitched involuntarily into a smile as Catra fell over laughing.

“Hey!” Adora leapt from the sand to land forcefully on Catra, and the two started to tussle in a good-natured wrestling match.

Huntara took a few steps away from them, shading her eyes again as she scanned the endless red sand in every direction. There had to be something – some way she could survive out here.

She drew in a sharp breath of dry air as her eyes finally caught something. There, far to the east of their position, was a small, dark outline against the bright horizon. Even better – Huntara could just make out a thin spiral of smoke rising from it.

The Crimson Waste wasn’t empty after all.

“Ow – no fair!” Catra yowled, and Huntara turned back to see that Adora had gained the upper hand and was pulling mercilessly on Catra’s tail. She marched back to them and picked them both up by the scruff – one in each hand. They immediately started flailing, trying to land a blow on the each other in midair.

“Cut that out!” She shook them slightly. “Unless you want me to leave you here.” They both went quiet and stared at her with wide eyes.

“Sorry.” Adora mumbled.

Huntara dropped them into the soft sand. Adora landed gracelessly on her behind, while Catra spun quickly as she fell to land on her feet with a light _thump_.

“So where are we going?” asked Catra, flicking sand from one ear as she looked up at Huntara.

“That direction.” Huntara jabbed a thumb over her shoulder, towards the east. “There’s smoke.”

“When are we going home?” Huntara paused at Adora’s quiet question. She stared down at the girl without answering.

“_Adora,_” Catra groaned. “Can’t you just shut up and have an adventure?”

“But…” The pitch of Adora’s voice rose as she spoke. “It’s probably almost time for our squad training. Lonnie and Kyle and Rogelio will be waiting for us – they can’t do it by themselves. And what if Shadow Weaver finds out we left without telling anyone? We can’t skip out on training if we want to be Force Captains someday…”

“Kid. Stop.” Huntara knelt so she was closer to Adora’s panicked face and put one large hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Have you ever wondered what the point of all that training is?”

“So we can make Etheria a better place…” The answer was quick, a trained response. It infuriated Huntara.

“That’s a lie. The Horde doesn’t make anything better. I’ve seen it. Hordak and Shadow Weaver just want more territory and power. You, me, her,” she jerked her head towards Catra. “We’re all disposable to them. So is everyone on Etheria.” Adora looked, wide-eyed and worried, to Catra, whose gaze flicked uncertainly between Adora and Huntara.

Huntara gestured for Catra to come closer. The little cat stepped forward, and Huntara put her other hand on Catra’s shoulder as she spoke quietly but clearly to both girls.

“I’m not going back to the Fright Zone. You both need to understand that right now.” She looked directly at Catra. “This isn’t some quick prank or adventure for you to laugh about later.” She addressed them both again. “This is real. This is survival. You can tag along with me until we find someone to take care of you, and then you can do whatever you want. Got it?” She waited until both girls nodded silently. 

She stood, rummaged in the skiff until she found the pack of emergency rations, hoped there was enough water to last them until they got to wherever it was they were going, and started walking towards the eastern horizon.

She heard the scuffle of shifting sand as the girls started following behind her. She glanced back and saw Catra reach a hand out to Adora, who took it with a nod and a half smile. Clearly, looking out for each other was second nature to them.

Good.

They’d need that out here.

And maybe, now they were out of the Fright Zone, they wouldn’t be torn apart in someone else’s pointless war.

Even if it had been a bit of an accident, Huntara mused, she was glad she’d brought them along. She might have spared them from growing up the way she had.

At the very least, she’d given them a chance to be something other than weapons for the Horde.


End file.
